Office 2007, SharePoint 2007 Get "Final" Service Packs

Microsoft rolled out the third service pack for Office 2007 and Sharepoint 2007 last week. SP3 would be "likely final" for both Office 2007 and SharePoint 2007, according to the company. Both products are scheduled to lose "mainstream support" in April 2012. During the mainstream support period, users have access to free product support as well as security and non-security updates.

After mainstream support ends next April, Office 2007 and SharePoint 2007 will enter a five-year period of "extended support," during which users can still receive security updates, but non-security updates will require a paid contract with Microsoft.

According to this Microsoft blog, SP3 "contains all the Cumulative Updates and Public Updates for Office 2007 that have shipped since SP2 for both the Office client suites and applications, and the SharePoint server applications." The update also includes previously unreleased product fixes.

SP3 is immediately available as a manual download to users with Automatic Update installed. It is also available via Microsoft's Download Center; the SP3 download links for specific products are listed in this Knowledge Base article. After 90 days, it will be delivered to users via Automatic Update.